Saturday, March 14, 2020
The GOP's president is incompetent, or a liar, or both.
In a time of national emergency, it would be nice if America were led by a competent, trustworthy, truth-teller.
Unfortunately, the GOP's president is none of those things. He's a liar and incompetent. His address to the nation on Wednesday was riddled with falsehoods and wrong information that his own people had to walk back and clarify. How could trump have gotten so much wrong in such a critical address to the nation?
We have no leadership at a time when it is sorely needed.
Fact checkers have been busy correcting the lies and inaccurate information the incompetent POTUS is giving out at a time when America needs strong, capable leadership.
"FACT CHECK
Trump’s False Claims About His Response to the Coronavirus
The president inaccurately described travel restrictions he had announced, falsely blamed his predecessor for testing shortages and misstated the role Google was playing in mitigating the outbreak.
Mr. Trump wrongly blamed the Obama administration for coronavirus testing shortages and falsely said it “didn’t do testing” during the swine flu epidemic of 2009.
WHAT MR. TRUMP SAID “I don’t take responsibility at all because we were given a set of circumstances and we were given rules, regulations, and specifications from a different time.” False.
The Food and Drug Administration issued a “draft guidance” in 2014 in which it sought to extend its authority to regulate laboratory-developed tests. But it’s wrong to blame that effort for the scattered and insufficient delivery of coronavirus tests as the guidance was not particularly relevant to emergency situations and was never finalized or generally enforced.
A law enacted in 2004 created the process and requirements for the use of unapproved products in public health emergencies. Under the law and guidance set by the Trump administration itself, the Food and Drug Administration requires developers of laboratory-developed tests to submit information and to comply with certain procedures.
WHAT MR. TRUMP SAID
“If you go back to the swine flu, it was nothing like this. They didn’t do testing like this, and actually they lost approximately 14,000 people, and they didn’t do the testing. They started thinking about testing when it was far too late.” False.
This is blatantly wrong. Diagnostic tests for the swine flu were approved and shipped out less than two weeks after the H1N1 virus was identified and a day before the first death in the United States."
David Remnick, The New Yorker:
"Trump’s misstatements and understatements in recent weeks are consistent with his general attitude toward empiricism. Which is to say, he has never shown much regard for fact. In the past, Trump has said that climate change is a Chinese “hoax” and that “vaccines can be very dangerous.”
Disinformation and misinformation are rampant in his mental universe. Trump recently gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh, who said, last month, “The coronavirus is the common cold, folks.”
One of Trump’s ardent supporters in the Senate, Tom Cotton, of Arkansas, is among those who have suggested publicly that “we at least need to ask the question” of whether the virus was a bioweapon deliberately created in a Chinese laboratory outside the city of Wuhan—a theory rehashed in places like the Washington Times."
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17 comments:
So are you saying we need the kind of leadership we had during the swine flu in 2009/10 which killed 12,500 Americans. It must have been handled correctly by that administration. Thankfully we didn't have a media out to destroy a sitting president by creating mass hysteria and blaming the president.
If you wanna understand the hypocrisy of the Trumpers all ya have to do is read this thread on AOW from the Ebola scare (
Keep in mind that TWO (2) nurses contracted ebola and recovered.
What's the count now in the U.S. for covid-19? I think it's more than 2.
The FOX/Trump right is calling whats happening here "hysteria." Read what they said about ebola when only 2 Americans got it and recovered. Obama was president then, and the furture Trumpers had no problem declaring Obama incompetent.
Hey, skud, all the health officials have said what we've seen so far is only the tip of the iceberg. We don't know how many Americans will die.
But since you brought this up, I'll do you a favor and show you the differences:
In tweets and other appearances, President Donald Trump has repeatedly compared his response to the new coronavirus with President Barack Obama’s handling of the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic. But Trump’s information is frequently incorrect or misleading — and the two viruses are very different.
In a March 4 telephone interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, for example, Trump falsely claimed that the Obama administration “didn’t do anything” about the 2009 pandemic.
Trump, March 4: Well, I just say that it’s, you know, a very, very small number in this country. And we’re going to try and keep it that way as much as possible. I will say, though, the H1N1, that was swine flu, commonly referred to as swine flu. And that went from around April of ’09 to April of ’10, where there were 60 million cases of swine flu. And over — actually, it’s over 13,000. I think you might have said 17. I had heard it was 13, but a lot of — a lot of deaths. And they didn’t do anything about it. Interestingly, with the swine flu, children were — in particular, they were vulnerable, sort of the opposite in that respect. But children were very vulnerable to the swine flu. But they never did close the borders. I don’t think they ever did have the travel ban. And we did. And, again, they lost at least 13,000.
In a March 12 meeting with the prime minister of Ireland, Trump repeated the sentiment.
“If you go back and look at the swine flu, and what happened with the swine flu, you’ll see how many people died, and how actually nothing was done for such a long period of time, as people were dying all over the place,” he said. “We’re doing it the opposite. We’re very much ahead of everything.”
Trump is correct on the number of H1N1 cases and deaths, but it’s misleading to compare those figures to the current outbreak of COVID-19, which has just begun. It’s also not true that the Obama administration did nothing or waited a long time to act on the H1N1 influenza pandemic.
cont. below
(cont.)
In 2009, a new H1N1 influenza virus cropped up out of season, in late spring. Because of genetic similarities to influenza viruses in pigs, it became known as a “swine flu,” even though there is no evidence the virus spread between pigs or pigs to humans.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were about 60.8 million cases of infection with the novel type of influenza virus in the U.S. between April 2009 and April 2010, with a total of approximately 274,304 hospitalizations and 12,469 deaths.
While that death toll may sound high, it’s over an entire year and, in fact, ended up being far lower than was initially expected. The strain of influenza also turned out to have a case fatality rate of just 0.02% — well below even many typical seasonal influenzas.
Everything that’s known about the new coronavirus so far suggests that it’s an entirely different beast than its most recent pandemic predecessor. Peter Jay Hotez, a professor and dean of the tropical medicine school at Baylor College of Medicine, told us that the new virus, which is known as SARS-CoV-2, is considerably more transmissible and more lethal than H1N1.
For those reasons, he said, “the urgency to contain this coronavirus is so much greater than the H1N1 2009 one was.”
In the Hannity interview, Trump touted his travel restrictions and noted that Obama “never did close the borders.” Paul A. Offit, chair of vaccinology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, agreed that Trump’s travel restrictions bought the U.S. time to react, but he said it didn’t make any sense to impose travel restrictions in 2009 since the H1N1 was first reported in North America and the flu is “hard to stop.”
“I don’t think it is a fair comparison,” Offit said. “The flu is constantly mutating – it usually happens in pig and humans in southeast Asia – it is really hard to stop that. Unless you ban all travel anywhere in the world to the United States you would have had trouble. That is true with all flu pandemics. I don’t think a travel ban would have ever made a difference.”
cont. below
Contrary to Trump’s suggestion that the Obama administration did “nothing,” officials declared a public health emergency early in the H1N1 outbreak, secured funding from Congress and ultimately declared a national emergency, as we’ll explain below.
On top of that, the CDC sequenced the new virus, created testing kits, and the Food and Drug Administration approved multiple vaccines, among other actions.
Rep. Michael Burgess, a Republican from Texas, praised the CDC at a House hearing in 2016 for quickly developing a vaccine for the swine flu in about six months — in time for the start of the school year in September 2009. “So that’s a 6-month time frame if I’m doing my math correctly that you were able to identify the genetic sequence of the virus, reverse engineer a vaccine, test it, assure its safety and efficacy, and get it to school teachers on the second week of school. That’s pretty impressive,” he said.
Trump said in a tweet that the Obama administration’s response to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic “was a full scale disaster.” While he can have that opinion, there is little to support such a negative view.
THE REST IS HERE.
skud, you obviously didn't know any of this and preferred to repeat FAUX NOOZ and trump's misinformation. These things are complicated and need more thought than a FAUX NOOZ or Rush Limbaugh opinion repeated by our incompetent POTUS.
You're welcome.
“As the coronavirus crisis becomes increasingly dire, news organization have to choose between covering the truth, and covering Trump.
Today, every time Trump addresses the novel virus and America's unfolding pandemic, he makes things worse with his steady stream of reckless contradictions, lies, and misinformation. A proud agent of chaos, Trump is the worst possible leader at this moment, as the nation grapples with historic challenges.” --Eric Boehlert
what we've seen so far is only the tip of the iceberg. We don't know how many Americans will die.
The CDC's current range of scenarios has the eventual number of dead Americans from covid-19 in the range of 200,000 to 1,700,000 (source). Yes, one million seven hundred thousand. Four times this country's total battlefield deaths from World War II. Given the administration's utter incompetence and disdain for science, and its inaction during the critical early stages of the pandemic, the worst-case scenario is all too plausible. Remember, there is no vaccine yet, and will not be for many months. Our only defense is the kind of prosaic measures Trump has ignorantly disdained.
It's quite likely that between now and the election, Trump will preside over the most terrible disaster in all of American history.
Infidel753, Trump's pal and recent recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Rush Limbaugh, told his millions of listeners that the covid-19 is nothing more than "the common cold." He also used to tell his listeners that smoking doesn't cause lung cancer. Q.E.D.
Trump has done a miserable job during this crisis. He's spread lies and misinformation, at the same time praising himself for the terrific job he's doing. But firing the pandemic response team in 2018 was not his responsibility. I could go on, but it's useless. Expect nothing from him and we won't be disappointed.
Trump announced today that he was being tested for the covid-19. Just a few weeks ago, he called it a "Democrat hoax." That's the sad, sad story of where we are right now.
Ignore everything he says and listen to your local and state leaders. You'll find better information there.
Stay safe.
PS. to Infidel753, the 12,000+ deaths cited by people caused by the H1N1 "swine flu" was a year's total. We've only begun tracking deaths over the last 3? weeks? and we're already at 2,400+ cases and 55 deaths.
I webt to the store shoppimg today. Looking at the shelves I thought dwe must be facing an immediate natural disaster like a hurricane, etc.
Many shelves... empty. No TP, alcohol, wipes, sanitizers etc. ANYWHERE.
The media has unnecessarily overhyped this.
You assume that it is fatal on all who get it which is untrue. How many people have contracted the mediavirus and lived and who are tho who died. Most deaths have occurred in people who are at risk. They would have died from a bad cold and the news media is making people afraid to move. I went to get some distilled water and in three stores they were out. No one drinks distilled water but there is a run on any water in a bottle.
The media was embarrassed when trump won because they were totally predicting a -H- win and it make them look like they didn't know what they were doing and totally partisan.
If they told the truth they should report that 100% of Americans will die, that would be honest journalism. Of course they could have in footnotes before 120.
I don't think trump has handled it correctly and agree that barry handled the swine flu better. He didn't close the border and let the medical community handle it. I am sure barry was the one who developed the test for swine just as Algore invented the internet. Of course in 2009 barry was a media darling and above criticism less you be called a racist. In 2020 trump is hated by the media and is to blame for sun spots.
Just tell Trump that the virus will hit his voting block much harder than the block supporting the Democrats and he'll be throwing lots of money at treating it right away. After all, he doesn't want all his supporters dead, does he?
KanaW Just look at what trump tried to do in Germany to make himself look good:
Germany’s Health Ministry confirmed a report in newspaper Welt am Sonntag, which said President Donald Trump had offered funds to lure the company CureVac to the United States.
Contacted by Reuters, a spokeswoman for the German Health Ministry said: “We confirm the report in the Welt am Sonntag.”
Berlin is trying to stop Washington from persuading a German company seeking a coronavirus vaccine to move its research to the United States, prompting German politicians to insist no country should have a monopoly on any future vaccine.
Germany’s Health Ministry confirmed a report in newspaper Welt am Sonntag, which said President Donald Trump had offered funds to lure the company CureVac to the United States, and the German government was making counter-offers to tempt it to stay.
“The German government is very interested in ensuring that vaccines and active substances against the new coronavirus are also developed in Germany and Europe,” the newspaper quoted a Health Ministry official as saying.
You assume that it is fatal on all who get it which is untrue.
Nobody is assuming anything even remotely like that.
Infidel, look up because the sky is falling. It was announced today that the mediavirus affects the elderly and those with compromised immune systems. That is shocking news and it is no wonder the media has caused panic and has shut down the world. Wish the leader considered that in 2009 because over 12000 people might not have died.
Skud... should the media just not report what the health experts are saying and advising?
In the narcissistic trumpian world of the cons tha apparent answer would be... YES in caps.
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